


Love and Other Disasters

by Thimblerig



Series: The Lion and the Serpent [48]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Author's Favorite, Idiots in Love, Kissing, M/M, MuskiesRewatch, Mutual Pining, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 01:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12519876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: “Aramis, will you kiss me?”Aramis nods - thoughtful? approving? - and neatens the pack of dog-eared cards by tapping them sharply against the little table that is all that will fit in your quarters. When he looks up his eyes are smiling.





	Love and Other Disasters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [danceswithscissors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithscissors/gifts).



“Aramis, will you kiss me?”

He pauses in gathering up the scattered cards, the slips of paper that the both of you, spendthrift, have been using for bets, and picks up the bottle you’ve been drinking from. He eyes it critically, gauging the liquid by holding the green bottle against a still, bright candle flame, then gives it a little shake as if not convinced.

“Oh my heart,” he quips lightly, “and after all these years.” Quirking one dark eyebrow he asks, “Why?”

 _Because I am cold,_ you think, _and you are warm, as sunlight, as wine mulled with spice, as a fire burning in the grate. Because I don’t want you to leave. Because everything you touch is caressed, what must it be to be loved by you?_ (You _have_ been drinking, perhaps a little.) Moistening your lips, you attempt the last: “Curiosity,” you say.

Aramis nods - thoughtful? approving? - and neatens the pack of dog-eared cards by tapping them sharply against the little table that is all that will fit in your quarters. When he looks up his eyes are smiling. “I could not deny you, my soul.” Standing, he moves the wobbly little table to a corner and comes to you, straight as a wand in creamy white shirt-sleeves and scalloped trouser-braces, his moustache neatened into points with a dab of beeswax. He sits beside you on the edge of the bed, one leg stretched out, and considers you in the low, warm light. His black eyes flick to your lips (scarred), your hands (knotted tight around each other), then up again to your face, drinking you in.

Warm. You can feel the warmth of him against your side, the warmth of his fingers against your cheek. Diffidently you explain, “I don’t have much ex-” and he kisses you.

He is light against your lips, gentle and nearly chaste. You accept it, wondering at not having to bend your neck because the one who connects with you is tall, at the tickle of his whiskers, the smells redoubled of leather and steel and horse and man. So gentle he is as if you were a delicate maiden, fragile as a glassy Prussian tear, and it is _then_ as you lean into him in frustration that he deepens the kiss, hot and yearning; you taste your wine on his lips.

His other hand curls around the back of your neck, soothing, and your own reach to brace his lean waist, to feel his breath and the surge of his blood while he drinks you, breathes you.

When it is done he pulls away slowly, gentle as ever. His head ducks as your hands fall away, the curls of glossy hair shading his eyes. When he looks up he is smiling again. “That is what it is,” he tells you, “to kiss a man.”

“Don’t go,” you tell him.

“Ah, my friend,” he answers, with a strange, crooked smile, “it is not in me to keep a lady waiting.” And he rises, shrugging into his leathers, his belts, his tools of warfare. You walk him to the door knowing that he is sniffing after the Cardinal’s mistress again…

He kisses you again in the doorway, a brush of lips against your cheek as any man might kiss a comrade, and it is warm. 

You latch the door and pick up the half-drunk bottle, the cold wine swirling in its belly as your hands shake.

And you drink.

**Author's Note:**

> // _his moustache neatened into points with a dab of beeswax_ \- I absolutely nicked this small detail from BazinMousqueton’s "The Body and the Battle" series, and if you want to read something where these two losers actually get laid (with Porthos), I recommend it heartily.
> 
> // _fragile as a glassy Prussian tear_ \- better known these days as “Prince Rupert’s drops”, these teardrops of molten glass dripped into cold water were made at least as early as 1625, and were sometimes called _lacrymae Borussicae_ (Prussian tears) or _lacrymae Batavicae_ (Dutch tears). They’re odd little things: hit the bulbous end with a hammer and it will stay whole, but snap the tail and all of it explodes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Rupert%27s_Drop 
> 
> // _Love and Other Disasters_ is a movie which has Santiago Cabrera, Brittany Murphy, and several other nice people (including the Spanish Ambassador from s2) involved in a lot of creative misunderstandings re: falling in love. It’s wonderful comfort viewing.
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> Oh hey, "Idiots In Love" is a canonical tag...


End file.
